The Best Feeling In The World
by ford-prefect-for-president
Summary: A glimpse into Piper's mind as she find herself falling in love with Alex. (Canon) Disclaimer: No characters belong to me. All is property of Piper Kerman and the genius that is Jenji Kohan. This is my first fanfiction, so please review!


When you imagine meeting your life's version of 'The One', you think of slow, burning gazes meeting across a crowded setting, lingering on each other and then giving way to the knowing smiles acknowledging that instant and mutual burst of attraction.

You know that is cliché in the purest sense of the word and yet, you can't bring yourself to be bothered by that fact. It's even slightly prosaic, considering its overuse in the movies, but at least it's familiar. Safe even. Ordinary, _even in its extraordinariness._

So anyway, suffice it to say, you are not anticipating the deluge of emotions, intrigue and adrenaline that flood your life when she enters it.

_She, _of course being the whirlwind that is Alex Fucking Vause.

_She _is charming and alluring in a forbidden sort of way. Not to mention, as you come to experience, taken.

But even after the unfortunate incident, which can only be euphemized as a slight bang-up, you just can't bring yourself to stay away. So of course, you're at the bar _for the burlesque show _and of course you end up initiating an encounter in the bathroom that _just happens _to end with you on your knees and her coming undone.

And when, consequently, after that entire she's-dating-someone-else scenario subsides, taking with it a bit of the forbidden-ness, you still can't stop your stomach from doing cartwheels and monkey bars every time she just plunges in for a kiss. And then you kiss her back with equal (if not more) ardor and fervor, as if lava is raining down on the world, submerging everything in its pandemonium.

All that passion and intensity you feel circuiting through your nerves, every time she so much as looks at you, just seems so effortless. So easy. So natural.

You feel open and courageous and alive and so free to be yourself, which isn't something you've felt in a long time. In fact, probably never.

Maybe _that's _what makes it easier to ignore the murkier details of her life. That unbridled barrage of passion, lust, enthrallment and rebellion that comes from being with her. Or maybe it's because she's never really exposed you to the _more real _(the one besides the late parties and glitzy clubs) side of the business.

Whatever the reason might be, you're happy with things the way they are and you don't care how frivolous that sounds (and you don't realize how illusory the bliss will turn out to be).

You try not to think too much about it when she leaves the country for a week, the first month into your relationship. You miss her, god knows you do. But you don't want to be clingy. So you don't call as much as you would've liked to and you try to play it cool (although, the chuckle that you hear from her on the phone when you respond with a breathless "Hello!" to her calls tells you that you're failing at it. And miserably too)

And then, somewhere over lazy Sunday afternoons spent watching movies; conversations about Pablo Neruda; debates over music genres; days spent missing her and late night drunk sex, you realize that falling _in love_ with her is_ even more effortless_.

Falling in love with her is effortless and mind-numbingly beautiful.

You feel the warmth spreading though your blood and skin; you feel your heart going into supernova-mode, threatening to just _explode and collapse, _the first time you tell yourself that you love her.

But of course, you're not the one to _say _it first.

Because in your mind, however naïve it might be, you know Alex to be a complicated _phenomenon_. A slightly (that part will change later) manipulative, worldly-wise, emotionally-controlled and _just infinitely cool _phenomenon. You keep telling yourself that you don't want to spring it on her. You don't want to scare her away with premature confessions of undying love.

But fact of the matter is, _you're afraid._

You're afraid of the fact that you're completely and wholly and desperately in love with her and that this intensity could potentially destroy you (you're already learning, see?).

You're afraid of her not being in love with you and leaving you _all alone_.

Because hate Carol Chapman all you want, you're still her daughter and some things do run in the family. Namely, in your case, that crippling fear of being left behind. The one you picked up from your mother, who couldn't divorce her cheating husband because of her latent fear of loneliness (and also of the WASPy gossip that came with the D-bombshell. But mostly the former. Probably)

But then, before you can bring yourself to carry out further 2 a.m. analyses on your emotionally repressive tendencies, _she _says it.

_She _tells you that _she _loves _you._

And that brings another new feeling to the fore.

The feeling of _actually believing someone _when they tell you that they love you.

And that vulnerability in her eyes when she tells you that you're supposed to say it back screams out to you what you think you should've come to realize by now:

_You are a goner._

You _have been_, since the day she came up behind you asked you if it wasn't too cold out for a margherita.

Your first instinct is to just squish her and hug her tightly because she looks just so beautiful and sincere and _human _when she says it.

Your next instinct is to laugh. You want to laugh about your paranoia of freaking her out and pushing her away.

But not _right now._

No.

Right now, you just want to tell her that you love her and see that delectable smile and capture her lips in yours.

So you do.

Effortlessly.

And isn't _that_ the best feeling in the world.


End file.
